Filipino-Canadian in Focus: Jason Godfrey

Taken while shooting for “Mata-Mata,” a TV program he stars in.

He’s one of those guys that are too good to be true. He is (in Derek Zoolander’s words) “really really ridiculously good-looking,” he’s funny, he’s witty, he acts and writes and poses professionally. What more could you possibly ask for?

Well, why not throw in being a professional traveler?

First Taste

Jason Godfrey is a Filipino-Canadian. Born and raised in Canada, he first visited the Philippines in 2005. His first destination? Coron, Palawan.

“I went to Coron in 2005—it was like this little fishing village and it was awesome. There was no one around, and you get to do all these things where you really feel like you’re on the frontier of doing things that no one else has; it just felt really authentic,” he fondly recalled.

He also shared his first love(s) in the Philippines back then.

“I lived here for four months, in Makati. Ate at Italianni’s and Cyma. That’s when I got my love for Cyma. I love Cyma,” he said.

He also stayed somewhere in south triangle, Quezon City, where his mother grew up. He went around the Scout area taking photos to show his mom.

Aside from Coron, he also backpacked around Legaspi (Albay, Donsol (Sorsogon), and Puerto Galera in 2005.

Now, more than 8 years after his first taste of his Motherland, Jason is back to help promote local tourism in the first ever locally produced travel show to air on international cable channel AXN Asia. The show, called ‘TEN,’ premiered on September 5th, and airs every Thursday at 7:15PM (PH time).

“They said this was a cleansing bath but I still think they were trying to cook me.” (caption from his FB page)

‘The Dark Knight’ of Diving

Jason notes some changes he noticed in the country after his 8-year absence.

“When we went back this year, obviously Coron was still beautiful, but it’s more developed, which is good for the local people,” he pointed out.

“Obviously they’re earning more money. From a tourist’s point of view, you’re almost selfish because you want it to be this little fishing village that only you knew about,” Jason adds.

Jason and his crew explained that the show is called ‘TEN’ because they want to showcase reasons why the Philippines is a “perfect ten.”

“When I first went to Coron, I went there to dive. I wasn’t prepared for how good it was going to be, and it actually destroyed diving for me. I didn’t really dive for the next five years because Coron was too good,” he explained.

He even likened Coron to a Christopher Nolan epic.

“It was like ‘The Dark Knight.’ I didn’t watch movies after ‘The Dark Knight.’ Coron is ‘The Dark Knight’ of diving,” he jokingly said, but we believe he’s dead serious.

“Sigh. TEN made me do it.” (caption from his FB page)

When asked about his most unforgettable experiencing filming for ‘TEN’, Jason had one quick answer right in the barrel.

“The merman thing,” he beamed.

“It wasn’t really crazy, but the pictures were crazy,” he added.

Jason’s talking about his mermaid swimming lessons where you get to wear a mermaid’s tail. It’s becoming more and more popular in Boracay.

Jason, in one of his episodes, said that he may be adventurous, but he tries to avoid death at all cost.

“Whenever I engage in sports, I like to avoid death,” he joked.

Although he does admit to doing as he was told.

“When the warden tells me to touch my own crotch, I touch it,” he says deadpan when he became a part of the Cebu Dancing Inmates for one of the episodes.

Jason getting ready to ski down Mt. Butler.

Big Smile, No Teeth

Jack of all trades, master of none. Jason acts, models, writes, and hosts, but he confesses the downside of dabbling on a lot of different things.

“That’s the problem when you’re so talented. The problem is I do all those things, but none of them well,” he laughed.

Being a model for most of his professional career, Jason got his own chosen moniker from the modeling industry.

“When I was modeling, ‘big smile, no teeth’ was something that people would always ask me to do,” he said.

“When you model too long, your muscles get overdeveloped when you’re smiling all the time. I think, sometimes, when I smile too big, it looks grotesque,” he added.

We disagree. His pearly whites are nothing short of a glorious toothpaste ad.

When asked about his success and being really big in Hong Kong and Singapore (even having his own TV series ‘Mata-Mata’), Jason was very down-to-earth, but never missed the opportunity to make us crack up.

“I don’t think it takes a lot of intelligence to be successful,” he mused.

“But I also noticed people who are successful at stuff aren’t necessarily the smartest people. I don’t think it takes a lot of intelligence to be successful. I think sometimes you have to be stupid to realize you can fail,” he explained.

“I think sometimes being too smart can—maybe I’m making myself an excuse for not being too smart—it can hold you back, you know? If you think too much, you would never try anything once. Nobody would really go for their dreams,” Jason continued.

And right then and there, he has proven himself to be both stupid and smart.

“Hanging at Bukit Timah, who knew there was outdoor climbing in Singapore. There’s not even a mall in sight.” (caption from his FB page)

“Cheap Bastard Traveler”

Jason considers his modeling career as the spark that ignited his love affair with traveling. As a model, he got to travel from one country to another just for photo shoots. These experiences filled him with a longing to explore deeper and experience more things.

And while the modeling world might seem all glamorous and chic, Jason admits that he’s nothing like that.

“I’m a cheap bastard traveler,” he says.

“I’m the cheapest traveler known to man. I’ve slept on pavement, although, to tell you the truth, that was when I was so much younger. I don’t know if I could do that now. But I’m still pretty cheap. I think that when you’re traveling, it’s great to go cheap, not just because of money, but I think that’s when you get really interesting experiences,” he added.

He rationalizes that staying at five-star accommodations give you almost the exact same amenities and conveniences anywhere you go.

“So you get a generic experience,” Jason said.

He’s a firm believer in unforgettable experiences, no matter the cost. For ‘TEN,’ just some of the places he explored are Pampanga, Panay, Coron, and Boracay.

“I like traveling third-class on a train with a chicken sitting underneath my seat, and all cramped up and sweating like a maniac. I don’t like it, but it’s more fun, it’s more interesting.

“You’ll remember reading a book under mosquito netting, and you look up and there’s a cockroach on your book. It’s bad, but you’ll remember that, right?” he said.

We hope it’s a rhetorical question.

“It’s something that you’ll laugh about, when you stay in a hut where everything crawls through it at night, and you wake up and there’s rats eating your food out of your bag. Yeah, it’s a crappy experience, but it’s an experience,” he continued.

And quite poetically, he adds, “things only get really good when you open yourself up to the possibility of things going bad.”

With reports from Tatin Yang (PDI), Cate de Leon (PhilStar), and Annie Alejo (Manila Bulletin)